A Congenial Evening with Smith-Madrone Wines

Fantasy evening of food and wine at LoDo loft

I received a surprise invitation last week to a gathering at Synergy Fine Wines' LoDo loft to meet winemaker Stu Smith of Smith-Madrone Winery and enjoy a terrific al fresco dinner prepared by Synergy owner Scott Lauck. In a previous life, Lauck was a personal chef. The evening reminded me of a magazine feature showing people in a beautiful setting, eating find food, drinking excellent wines and presumably being scintillating.

I write that it was a "surprise invitation" because I was the rare (maybe sole) food person amid a bunch of wine folks. I always enjoy rubbing elbows with wine lovers, because they combine real passion, deep knowledge and perhaps just a bit of snobbism to provide sophisticated charm. As egalitarian as I usually am, I like to experience a thin veneer of superiority when I'm among people who know a lot more about, say, art or wine than I do and have wonderful stories of glamorous people, places and events .

The evening, which started at the grownup hour of 7:00 p.m., began with Pierre Guimonet et Fils champagne poured into sparkling flutes. We sipped chatted and nibbled prosciutto, crostini and a selection of cheeses. The evening was balmy and the deck exceedingly pleasant.

Stu Smith (below) was introduced, said a few gracious words and then circulated to chat with individual guests. He had brought his 2008 Riesling, 2008 Chardonnay and an especially beautiful 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon. As we clinked glasses -- Riedel or some other musical crystal -- Smith noted that when we enjoy wine, we usually use the senses of sight, taste and smell, and that when we clink glasses, we also use the sense of hearing. I liked that.

Dinner consisted of fresh-from-the-grill steak, pork chops and salmon, plus heirloom tomatoes, grilled white asparagus and fabulous asparagus risotto. Lauck has clearly not lost his culinarian touch, followed by a great chocolate layer cake that he did not bake, along with Bliss ice cream.

 

  

The evening ended with more champagne -- no sabered but opened with a spoon. Alas, it was too dark and happened too fast for my little camera to capture.

I still am unsure of why I was invited, but I had a wonderful urban evening and am happy that I was.

A Congenial Evening with Smith-Madrone Wines

A Taste of Colorado Coming Right Up

Food is just one aspect of the annual mega-fest at Civic Center Park -- and chef-prepared food a small part of that

The quarter of a million people, give or take, who pour into Denver's Civic Center Park every Labor Day weekend go there for the free music and entertainment as much as for the food. Dedicated foodies rush past the corn dogs, turkey legs, kettle corn and Dippin' Dots ice cream and head directly to the the fine dining area where chefs hold sway and to the culinary ahowcase. This cooking  is presented by 630 KHOW and once again hosted by Pat "Gabby Gourmet” Miller. At the showcase, well-known local and vsiting chefs put on cooking demos with offer tips and techniques for festivalgoers take home to their own kitchens.

Culinary Showcase Stage

Friday, September 3

• 12 noon. Heather Isley of Natural Gocers by Vitamin Cottage.
• 1:15 p.m. Glen Whitman of The Broker.
• 2:30 p.m. Pie tasting contast, featuring baked treats from bang!, Child’s Pastry Shop, Granny Scott’s Pie Shop, Marczyk Fine Foods, My Mom’s Pie, Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage, Pickles Deli, Posh Pastries, Silver Plume Tea Room, Trattoria Stella East, WaterCourse Foods Bakery, and Zaidy’s Deli.
• 3:30 p.m. Rachid Sabri, The Cork House Restaurant prepares lamb meatballs.
• 4:30 p.m. Garrett Whitlow of Randolph’s.
• 5:30 p.m. James Mazzio of Olive Oil and Pickles Deli, Littleton, preapres tiramisu. Mazzia was one of
• Food & Wine magazine’s “Best New Chef” in 1999.
• 6:30 p.m. Ready, Set, Cook! chef competition. 

Saturday, September 4

• 11:15 a.m. Heather Pratt of Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage
• 12 noon. Troy Guard of TAG Restaurant, prepares Szechuan Colorado hanger steak and Olathe corn salad. TAG was named Westword’s “Best Fusion Restaurant” for 2010.
• 1:15 p.m. Ice Cream Eating Contest
• 2:30 p.m. Matt Selby of Vesta Dipping Grill and will prepares chorizo and clams with caramelized fennel mustard seed broth.
• 3:30 p.m. Keegan Gerhard -of D Bar Desserts. 
• 4:30 p.m. Maxwell Mackissock of The Squeaky Bean.
• 5:30 p.m. Colorado Produce, wine, and all things from the Front Range will be showcased with Chris “Moose” Coons of Peach Street Distillers, Ben Kaplan of Shazz Café & Bar Matt Selby again and the fine folks from Grant Family Farms.
• 6:30 p.m. Ready, Set, Cook! chef competition with Ben Kaplan of Shazz Café & Bar and Matt Selby of Vesta Dipping Grill and Steuben’s

 Sunday, September 5 

• 11:15 a.m. Patty Moore of Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage.
• 12 noon. Students from the Art Institute of Colorado’s culinary program and the school's Assignments Restaurant demonstrate ice carving and craft pineapple sorbetto.
• 1:45 p.m..Steve's Snappin’ Dogs Hot Dog Eating Contest.
• 2:30 p.m. James Mazzio of Olive Oil and Pickles Deli.
• 3:30 p.m. Keegan Gerhard of  D Bar Desserts
• 4:30 p.m. Mike and Janet Johnston of the Savory Spice Shop (she starred in the Food Network’s “Spice and Easy”) demonstrate the use in sweet green pea falafel, three bean pepperoncini dip and Mt. Olympus spiced tzatziki sauce.
• 5:30 p.m. Colorado Farm Fresh Foods with Dan Borgmann of Vendor Hippo plus appearances by Daniel Archer of Root Down and Omnomnom Street  Cart, and James Mazzio of Olive Oil and Pickles Deli.
• 6:30 p.m. Ready, Set, Cook! The Colorado Farm Fresh Challenge!

 Monday, Sepembber 6 

• 11:15 a.m. Maddy D’Amato and Alex Hasulak of Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage.
• 12 noon.  David Hendricksen of Assignments Restaurant.
• 1:45 p.m. Steve’s Snappin’ Dogs Hot Dog Eating Contest.
• 2:30 p.m. Lee Clayton Roper, author of A Well-Seasoned Kitchen, makes several simple yet flavorful
• gourmet recipes, including melted Gruyere and bacon dip, pesto chicken and vegetable fettuccine, and fast fruit cobbler.
• 3:30 p.m. Tyler Wiard of Elway’s Cherry Creek, crafts his signature chilled Colorado tomato tortilla soup and baby shrimp green chile salsa.
• 4:30 p.m. Daniel Archer of Root Down and Omnomnom Street Cart makes summer tomato-cantaloupe gazpacho, blended with Hanger One Chipotle vodka, lime crema and fig balsamic vinegar.
• 5:15 p.m. "Ready, Set, Cook! chefs competition.

Fine Dining Area

The Fine Dining Area, sponsored by Sub-Zero and Wolf,  features some of Denver’s most
accomplished chefs and noted restaurants selling gourmet specialties. The following restasurant information is directly from Taste organizers:

• Assignments Restaurant, a unique educational and dining establishment designed to create an open environment run entirely by students, will offer Festivalgoers a variety of tastes, including white gazpacho with manchego crisp, spicy chicken sandwiches with slaw, strawberry shortcake with lemon curd, and chocolate truffles.
• The Broker, will be featuring shrimp cocktail, prime rib sandwiches, lamb ribs, and a shrimp & prime rib sandwich combo. Rustic and refined,
• The Cork House Wine Restaurant’s menu will include Kobe sliders, lamb meatball sandwiches, and hummus. EvoBean, an economically, socially, and environmentally-conscience coffee company, will offer hot and cold coffee, hot and cold lattes, espresso, and whole bean coffee.
• Olive Oil’s Italian comfort food and homegrown ingredients, featured in the spinach & mushroom lasagna, muffuleta, meatballs, BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, and tiramisu.
• Randolph’s will serve golden beet gazpacho, chicken salad sandwiches, and shrimp & chorizo cataplanas – contemporary American cuisine with a Rocky Mountain flair.
• 518 Degrees, a wood-fired pizza oven on wheels, serving margherita pizza, pizza alla diavola, garden medley pizza, garlic knots, and cannoli.
•  Summit County’s most popular tacos, Chimayo Mexican Grill will feature its baja fish tacos, baja shrimp tacos, and churros.
• Gigi’s Cupcakes, home of more than 60 varieties of the sweet treats, will offer Kiddie Kake, Wedding Cake, White Midnight Magic and Miss Princess cupcakes.
• Kinga’s Lounge will include traditional Polish dumpplings, including meat or cheese pierogi (dumplings); pierogi and bigos (a savory stew); bigos and kielbasa (sausage); pierogi and kielbasa; and a combo of kielbasa, pierogi, and bigos.
• Tocabe will serve American Indian ground beef tacos, vegetarian tacos, cherry or apple dessert tacos, and powdered sugar/cinnamon frybread.

A Taste of Colorado Coming Right Up

Culinary Colorado Marks 1,000th Post

This blog starting its second thousand posts

I  just noticed that my previous post, "Chautauqua Dining Hall a Lovely Lunch Spot," is the 1,000th I have written on this blog. The very fist was a little lament on October 10, 2006, called "Outdoor Dining Season Might Just Be Over." We're nearing the end of the fourth outdoor dining season since then, and I've written about meals I've made, meals I've eaten out, meals I've eaten while traveling, local food news, agriculture, books and much more.

One thousand posts call for a bit of background. I started this blog nearly four years ago because I love food and I enjoy writing about it too. I had authored a book called Culinary Colorado, a food-oriented guidebook and wanted an outlet for more food writing in this state and elsewhere. Since my 1,000th post was about a Boulder area restaurant -- one that happens to have been around for a long time -- that was in business then, I thought it might be a tribute to Boulder chefs, restaurateurs and the dining public to acknowledge the  restaurants here that were in that book, which I researched in 2002 for publication in 2003. Some of them are gone, but in a number of cases, the chefs are elsewhere in town:.

Boulder Area Restaurants of 2003

Alice's restaurant at Gold Lake Resort

Bacaro
Carelli's
Chautauqua Dining Hall
China Gourmet and Spice China
European Cafe
Flagstaff House
Full Moon Grill
Jax Fish House
John's Restaurant
Mateo
The Mediterranean Restaurant ("The Med")
PanAsia Fusion
Q's Restaurant at the Boulderado
Rhumba
The Sushi Triangle (my combining of Hapa Sushi, Japango, Sushi Tora and Sushi Zanmai)
Sunflower
Triana
Trios Grille, Wine Bar and Home Gallerie
Zolo Grill

Interesting, isn't it?

Culinary Colorado Marks 1,000th Post

Chautauqua Dining Hall a Lovely Lunch Spot

Boulder landmark aces it for ambiance and atmosphere

Boulder provides an embarrassment of restaurant riches, including many that are simply lovely to behold and/or offer wonderful outdoor dining. But nothing -- with arguable exception of the Flagstaff House -- matches the setting of the historic Chautauqua Dining Hall. Chautauqua is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the gray frame building with white trim is now a public restaurant overlooking the broad lawn and large trees of Chautauqua Park. It is open almost year-round, serving breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner on a schedule that changes depending on the season. Right now, it is still going full-tilt.

Maybe because we lunched a bit on the late side, two friends and I managed to scores a table on the porch with a park view across the roadway.It was exceptionally pleasant to sit there, of course, with a light breeze and the sun flirting with the clouds.

The  Southwestern Chicken sandwich (grilled chicken breast, green chiles and  cheddar) comes on focaccia bread with a choice of fries or chips. The thin fries, which came out hot, nicely crisp outside and smooth inside, were a good choice.

 

The pulled pork on a bun also comes with a choice of fries or chips, but my friend didn't care for either. The first example of what I consider unnecessary nickel-and-diming was that there was no offer of a substitution. The waitress could, and IMHO should, have suggested a substitute, or the kitchen could have put extra cole slaw or a bit of lettuce and tomato on the plate.

I ordered the beet salad  (spinach, sliced beets, orange segments, sliced red onion and champagne vinaigrette plus goat cheese, a $2 extra). That salad is precisely what came out of the kitchen. No more. No less. I requested a roll or a piece of bread. Ten minutes later, out came two pieces of focaccia, which was twice as much as I wanted and which added $1 to the check. It's not about the dollar, which I certainly didn't dispute, but this was what, to me, seemed like a second example of chintziness. I understand that the old building is expensive to operate, and the seasonal guest fluctuation adds to the challenge of operating there, but still.....

These are quibbles, because of the grade-A setting that makes me overlook the flaws. The Chautauqua Dining Hall is so appealing that the food, in a sense, is an add-on -- and I don't think that of too many places.

Price check: At lunch, appetizers, $6-$12; soups and salads, $6-$8; sandwiches, $7-$9 (and $14 crab cake); "late breakfast" items, $7-$10; lunch entrees, $14-$16; sides, $3-$4.Dinner is considerably more expensive.

Chautauqua Dining Hall a Lovely Lunch Spot

A Bright Boulder Place for Tacos and More

Pica's Mexican Taqueria got great review and has gringo appeal

I pay attention when a restaurant writer with the last name of Alvarez writes about "a new king of 'fast-fresh Mexican,' and lucky for us, its newest location is right here in Boulder. Tucked way out into the hinterlands of Arapahoe, the brand new Pica's Mexican Taqueria tops them all with effortless authenticity and bold, playful flavors that can go toe-to-toe with any fancier sit-down Mexican joint in the city and win. Best of all, you'll have a hard time exhausting a ten-spot on dinner -- unless you go gonzo on margaritas." And that's how Ted Alvarez, the Daily Camera's dining critic, started his review.

I have no idea whether Alvarez's forefathers came to what is now the U.S. Southwest long before the American Revolution, whether they crossed the Rio Grande more recently, or whether they were from Cuba, Puerto Rico or some other Spanish land. His surname gave credibility his review, but when I looked into Pica's history, it turns out that the "authenticity" came from Wyoming (locations in Jackson and Wilson) and migrated south. Trent Davol, the Boulder location's owner, worked in Wyoming and brought the concept to East Boulder. It's cheerful and clean and very pleasant with am ambiance that is more "American fast casual" than "taqueria," no matter what the sign on the door claims.

Ted Alvarez was not alone in praising Pica's to the skies for its tasty fresh food and moderate prices.The restaurant is bright and cheerful, but after we ordered and paid at the counter, we headed out for the spacious patio. Families are welcomed with such thoughtful extras as a container of sidewalk chalk that kids (and their parents) can use to draw hopscotch or create art on the concrete. Only the incessant noise from an air conditioner kept it from being idyllic.

The food, when it was delivered, turned out to be good but not as drop-dead great as I'd been led to expect. The excessively salty guacamole came in a fake plastic molcajete plus crisp tortilla chips for dipping.

Pica's pair of open-face, soft tacos can selected with carne asada tacos, chicken el carbon, carnitas, Baja-style with either fish or shrimp, marinated shrimp, al pastor or grilled mahi.  Each one comes with an appropriate salsa plus Mexican rice and beans.  

Puya chicken salad consists of nicely grilled chicken sliced avocado, a generous amount of salsa fresca and puya chile vinaigrette. Puya chiles, I learned are moderately hot, enough to kick the salad up a notch. A folded flour tortilla perched on the rim of the plate.

Price check: Burritos, $6.25-$8.95; Tacos, $6.25-$8.95; enchiladas, $8.25-$8.75; quesadillas, $5.95-$7,50; salads, $4.95-$8.50; soups, #.75 for a cup or one to $6.95 for a bowl of the other.

A Bright Boulder Place for Tacos and More

Another Mediocre Meal in Estes Park

Sweet Basilico showed promise but fell short as so many others have done

I like Estes Park. I really do. How can I not like a town whose main street is filled with pedestrian shopping, window shopping and heading for a place to eat?  It's the eating part that is at issue here. After hiking or snowshoeing or skiing or when we have out-of-town visitors in tow, we tend to stop in Estes Park for a bite to eat. I always have high hopes for a really good meal, but virtually every restaurant disappoints,and we never go back. We find ourselves returning to Ed's Cantina. It doesn't serve the best Mexican food on the planet, but it's a lot better than most other places we've tried.

Disclaimer: I haven't tried every place in town -- and we do tend to stop for a bite between the park's Beaver Meadows entrance and downtown and in downtown itself. I have not eaten at the Stanley Hotel in years and usually feel to post-hike-y to step into this classy place.The Dunraven Inn is only open for dinner, by which time we're usually back in Boulder, and for some reason, I've never yet made it to the Baldpate Inn, which is closed in winter and has changing hours between high and shoulder seasons.

A few weeks ago, when I was traveling, my husband and a friend wanted to try Sweet Basilico after hiking, but there was such a long wait that they went next door to the Estes Park Brewery with its uninspired pub food. With high hopes, we went there yesterday. It was raining, so the patio was out of the question. Within the low-slung building is a large old-timey dining room with knotty-pine tongue-and-groove wainscoting, pictures of Italy on the walls above and tables set with plastic cloths and paper placemats. Five chairs at the open kitchen welcomes solo diners. The restrooms -- at least the ladies' room -- really needed attention.

La Cucina

Sweet Basilico laims that everything is fresh and made to order. The sure manage to hide that. As at so many Estes Park restaurants, it is geared to customers with middle-American tastes: soft bread or rolls with salted butter, Saltine crackers with every soup, tedious salads often with bottled salad dressing, wilted vegetables, overcooked pasta drowned in too much sauce and so on. Sweet Basilico's  food was certainly edible, but IMHO not worth a second visit. Another disclaimer. My husband who grew up in Nevada but whose parents came from Minnesota and our friend who is from Indiana thought the food was fine. I grew up in Connecticut, went to college in Boston and lived in New York and Hoboken, New Jersey, with a 45% Italian population when I moved there. My expectations of Italian food exceeded Sweet Basilico's fare -- of maybe it's just that I'm a food snob!

If you order a soup and salad, as I did, you have a choice of a large soup and a small salad, or a small soup and a large salad. Good idea. Below is the minestrone,the only soup available. It seems to have been made either with a tomato soup base or possibly with diluted tomato juice and then spiced to pleasant pepperiness. I commend the kitchen for not oversalting, but other than that? Sigh. The vegetables and legumes were of decent variety, but most seem to have come from cans. I think the onions, celery and carrots might have been fresh-cut, but I don't think the tomatoes or limp string beans were fresh. It's OK to use.chickpeas and red beans from a can,. And the overcooked broccoli flowerets would have better relegated to the compost bin.

The salad was mostly iceberg lettuce. Iceberg lettuce? In the 21st century? In an Italian restaurant? Indeed, with a choice of three dressings. Sliced carrots, halved cherry tomatoes, unpeeled cukes julienned yellow squash and one each pickled red and green pepper. Long live peperoncini! Large and small salads are shown below.

Chicken mozzarella is white meat topped with mozzarella and baked with sautéed vegetables and served over spaghetti. The vegetables plunked on the pasta and the chicken were thick spears of carrot, red pepper, chunks of zucchini and more of that unappealing broccoli. Let's just say that presentation is not a strong point.

The cannelloni consisted of what tasted like sloppy Joe filling stuffed into two rolled crepes with melted mozzarella swimming in a sea of pedestrian red sauce and a black olive or two as garnish..

Price check: At lunch, soups, salads and combos, $6.50-$850; sandwiches, $7.95 including minestrone or pasta salad; pasta, $8.95 (extra for cheese ravioli); chicken or shrimp entrees, $9.95; pizza, $4.95 for a plain "mini" to #18.95 for a fully loaded large; sides, $1.75-$3.95.

Urbanspoon.com inexplicably does not list any restaurants in Estes Park. They cover hamlets like Arboles, Blanca, Eads, Kersey, Pine, Silt and Wiggins, as well as Grand Lake on the other side of Rocky Mountain National Park, but not Estes Park which attracts hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of visitors from afar as well as almost-locals like us. Go figure.

Sweet Basilico is at  430 Prospect Village Dr., Estes Park; 970-586-3899.

Another Mediocre Meal in Estes Park

Dim Sum, Redux

New Port (formerly Heaven Star) continues to serve swell dim sum

My husband, a friend and I went for a hike in Rocky Mountain National Park today. The hike was fantastic, but without going into irrelevant detail, it persuaded me that I need new hiking boots before I next set foot on trail.

When we returned home after a truly mediocre late lunch in Estes Park (I'll write about that another time), we flopped down on the couch to watch a DVRed movie, "Dim Sum Funeral." It was a chick-flick about a Chinese-American family that only had a minor eating scene at the very end. No "Eat Drink, Man Woman"! But even the title reminded me that I never did get around to reporting on our most recent visit to New Port in Broomfield -- a dim sum excursion requested by my son, who was up from Durango a couple of weeks ago.

We nodded very often as the carts came by and feasted on an assortment of dumplings (fried and steamed, filled with pork, seafood or vegetables), sliced meat, soup, even Chinese broccoli and at the end, even cake (bottom image), even though Chinese cakes seem to put a premium on bright colors and sweetness over other characteristics. Somewhere, I have a menu on which I took notes as to what is in which dumpling or fritter. But the truth is, that when you visit a dim sum restaurant, you make your selection from whatever dishes are wheeled by when you happen to be there. Below are the the dim sum dishes four of us feasted on.

Local foodies have been debating whether New Port is as good as Heaven Star was. I did not find great differences -- other than those dictated by the hour. On previous visits, we went early and had to wait for a table. At peak times, the carts roll out of the kitchen with machine-gun speed. This time, we arrived around 1:00 p.m. to find no lines but somewhat slower carts. The food, I thought, was as good as ever.

Dim Sum, Redux

Colorado Featured on Big-Time Food TV

Kelly Liken still surviving on "Top Chef," and two Pueblo eateries compete on "Food Wars"

Once upon a very long time ago, cooking shows were mostly confined to public television. Then, years later, came the Food Network, which since begat the Cooking Network, and the Bravo and the Travel Channel are also in the food/cooking/reality TV continuum.

Kelly Liken, owner/chef of Vail's eponymous Restaurant Kelly Liken is still soldiering on season seven of Bravo's "Top Chef." Episode 11 has now been broadcast, and I think they're down to six (or is it five?) chef-testants, of whom Liken is one. If she wins, she will be the second Colorado chef to be the top "Top Chef" after Boulder's Hosea Rosenberg who won season five.

"Top Chef" contestants have to travel to the filming site, but the Travel Channel's "Food Wars" is one of those where the host and crew visit restaurants. I've frankly never watched this program, but I will this week because it features Pueblo. The format is a competition between two local well-loved establishments that are considered to be rivals. The program supposedly determines which makes the best version of the area's signature dish.

Wednesday's show takes the war to Pueblo, home of the Slopper. As I wrote, I've never watched "Food Wars" and I've never had a Slopper, but I now know that it is a cheeseburger smothered with so much spicy green chili that it is served in a bowl. For decades two rival restaurants have been fighting over who dishes out Pueblo's best Slopper: Gray’s Coors Tavern and The Sunset Inn. While Restaurant Kelly Liken is a fine-dining establishment in a high-priced mountain resort town, the two Slopper contenders are casual family-style, family-run restaurants in a gritty city with industrial roots. Not surprisingly, neither has a website -- note one that I could find anyway.

FWIW, Gray’s Coors Tavern is the birthplace of the iconic dish and has already won five “Best of” awards for its rendition. The Sunset Inn looks to dethrone Gray’s with its own Slopper, with a pepper-infused chili based on an old Mexican family recipe. A blind taste test will crown a winner in the Pueblo Slopper War. Below is a YouTube preview -- something I can't provide for "Top Chef."



Both shows air on Wednesday evening. Wednesday is "Top Chef" day on Bravo, and I'm frankly not sure when new episodes air. "Food Wars" comes on at 9:00 p.m., Mountain Time.

And to give recognition in the print media its due, four restaurants cited in a New York Times Travel Section piece on Denver were Colt and Gray, Fruition, Root Down and The Squeaky Bean.

Colorado Featured on Big-Time Food TV

Sangria and Hors d'Oeuvres at The Fort

Beautiful setting and a fabulous early-evening spread

Yesterday evening was one of those charmed summer nights -- clear skies, comfortable temperatures, excellent company in an excellent place. The local chapter of the Les Dames d'Escoffier gathered on the terrace of The Fort, south of downtown Morrison for a sunset gathering.

Along with sangria served in Mason jars came a fine spread of nibbles from their appetizer menu: fabulous barbecued duck quesadillas, crunchy chips with salsa and guac', peanut butter-stuffed jalapeños, Acapulco shrimp ceviche, escabeche, bison eggs (similar to Scotch eggs but with quail eggs and ground bison meat, bison sausage called "boudies," and braised bison tongue on toast with caper aioli, one of The Fort's many heritage dishes that simply aren't served anyplace else. I'm not sure why we didn't take food closeups this time, but I'm afraid we didn't.

The hostess was Holly Arnold Kinney (below in a traditional beaded deerskin dress), The Fort's owner and a past chair of LDEI's local chapter. She told the amazing story of the food-safety detective work that went into identifying the Iowa poultry farms that are culpable in the recent salmonella-tainted egg problem that prompted a massive recall and made headlines. I can't begin to repeat it, but suffice it to say that The Fort played an identifiable role in ferreting out the culprit farms. She also showed us a spiral-bound proof of her forthcoming book, Shinin' Times at The Fort, a cookbook and family memoir that will be out in November. Even in proof form, it's a beautify, with photos by Lois Ellen Frank, a gifted food photographer who works and lives on Red Mesa near Santa Fe.

On the way out, we stopped to look at Sissy Bear's Garden, planted this year in The Fort's courtyard and used by the chefs to supplement the organic produce that the restaurant buys. You can see from the cut stems that veggies were recently harvested. I wrote about the new garden in a profile I did in edibleFront Range magazine, but I had interviewed Holly and the chefs last winter, so I hadn't seen it until now. The statue guarding the garden is of Sissy Bear, a Canadian black bear that was an Arnold family pet when Holly was growing up.

Tempted as we had been to stay for dinner, we pulled ourselves away and headed home. We were glad that we did, because as we were heading north on Highway 93, we spotted such a magnificent harvest moon rising over Denver that we pulled over to admire and photograph it.

Sangria and Hors d'Oeuvres at The Fort

Penzey's Now Open on Pearl

New spice store on Boulder's Pearl Street Mall

Today is the first full day for the new Penzey's Spices retail store in Boulder. (It opened for a couple of hours yesterday afternoon because they were ready, as Kim told me when I stopped by this morning.) It is located on the Pearl Street Mall,, just east of Broadway -- and around the corner from born-in-Denver-born Savory Spice Shop on  Broadway between Pearl and Spruce. Bottom line for cooks is that if you need herbs, spices, spice blends, rubs, seasoned salts, soup mixes or any other flavor enhancers, this is the place to go. Penzey's Spices, 1219 Pearl Street, Boulder; 303-447-2777. Savory Spice Shop, 2041 Broadway, Boulder; 303- 444-0668. This is not the first place in Colorado with both stores close to each other. In Littleton, Penzey's is at 2500 West Main Street and Savory Spice is at 2560 West Main.

Penzey's Now Open on Pearl